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Charity wrote:
I find it humorous that I’m having a hard time finding lds materials to back these teachings up, because I was raised in a less active home so everything I was taught was at church or seminary. So materials have been either altered or removed, or some Sunday School teachers were taking some teaching liberties.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of references from our church’s history who DID teach that plural marriage was a requirement for salvation. I think it took some more progressive thinkers like Talmage, BH Roberts, and McConkie to take these kinds of ‘out there’ doctrines and bringing the church in line with more of the mainstream religious ideology that was out there. I think those guys are more responsible for where our church is currently, more than most of the early founders of the church.
Personally, I don’t believe heaven will be split into three different kingdoms. I also don’t believe we’d be required to be married to be there. What if somebody doesn’t want to be married? They don’t get salvation? That doesn’t make sense to me. How would it be fair that a man like Brigham Young gets 50+ wives, but his wives are stuck with 1/50th of a husband for eternity. Seems like rather one-sided thinking to me. But, unfortunately, as far as your friends who were saying that polygamy will be common, or even required, in heaven, they could easily quote Brigham Young or several other early prophets and apostles to back up their claims:
Brother Cannon remarked that people wondered how many wives and children I had. He may inform them that I shall have wives and children by the million, and glory, and riches, and power, and dominion, and kingdom after kingdom, and reign triumphantly.
Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 8:178
The one wife system not only degenerates the human family, both physically and intellectually, but it is entirely incompatible with philosophical notions of immortality; it is a lure to temptation, and has always proved a curse to a people.
John Taylor, Millennial Star, Vol. 15, p. 227
Obviously the holy practice [of polygamy] will commence again after the Second Coming of the Son of Man and the ushering in of the millennium.
Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine
In the spirit world there is an increase of males and females, there are millions of them, and if I am faithful all the time, and continue right along with brother Brigham, we will go to brother Joseph and say, “Here we are brother Joseph; we are here ourselves are we not, with none of the property we possessed in our probationary state, not even the rings on our fingers?” He will say to us, “Come along, my boys, we will give you a good suit of clothes. Where are your wives?” “They are back yonder; they would not follow us.” “Never mind,” says Joseph, “here are thousands, have all you want.” Perhaps some do not believe that, but I am just simple enough to believe it.
Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses 4:209
“Says one brother to another, ‘Joseph says all covenants are done away, and none are binding but the new covenants; now suppose Joseph should come and say he wanted your wife, what would you say to that? I would tell him to go to hell.’ This was the spirit of many in the early days of this Church…
“What would a man of God say, who felt aright, when Joseph asked him for his money? He would say, ‘Yes, and I wish I had more to help to build up the Kingdom of God.’ Or if he came and said ‘I want your wife?’ ‘O Yes,’ he would say, ‘here she is, there are plenty more.’ … Did the Prophet Joseph want every man’s wife he asked for? He did not…. If such a man of God should come to me and say, ‘I want your gold and silver, or your wives,’ I should say, ‘Here they are, I wish I had more to give you, take all I have got.”
– Apostle Jebediah M. Grant, Journal of Discourses, v. 2, pp. 13-14
“… [Joseph Smith taught] the doctrine of plural and celestial marriage is the most holy and important doctrine ever revealed to man on the earth, and that without obedience to that principle no man can ever attain to the fullness of exaltation in the celestial glory.”
– William Clayton, Joseph Smith’s secretary, Historical Record, v. 6, p. 226
“The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy.”
– Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 11, p. 269
“[If I] had not obeyed that command of God, concerning plural marriage, I believe that I would have been damned.”
– Apostle George Q. Cannon, Journal of Discourses, v. 23, p. 278
“You might as well deny ‘Mormonism,’ and turn away from it, as to oppose the plurality of wives.”
– Apostle Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses, v. 5, p. 203
“God has told us Latter-day Saints that we shall be condemned if we do not enter into that principle [of polygamy]; and yet I have heard now and then (I am very glad to say that only a low such instances have come under my notice) a brother or a sister say, ‘I am a Latter-day Saint, but I do not believe in polygamy.’ Oh, what an absurd expression! What an absurd idea! A person might as well say, ‘I am a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, but I do not believe in him.’ One is just as consistent as the other…. If the doctrine of polygamy, as revealed to the Latter-day Saints, is not true, I would not give a fig for all your other revelations that came through Joseph Smith the Prophet; I would renounce the whole of them, because it is utterly impossible, according to the revelations that are contained in these books, to believe a part of them to be from the devil… The Lord has said, that those who reject this principle reject their salvations, they shall be damned, saith the Lord…”
– Apostle Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses, v. 17, pp. 224-225
Quote:Gordon B. Hinckley:The figures I have are from — between two percent and five percent of our people were involved in it. It was a very limited practice; carefully safeguarded. In 1890, that practice was discontinued. The president of the church, the man who occupied the position which I occupy today, went before the people, said he had, oh, prayed about it, worked on it, and had received from the Lord a revelation that it was time to stop, to discontinue it then. That’s 118 years ago. It’s behind us. Larry King:But when the word is mentioned, when you hear the word, you think Mormon, right? Gordon B. Hinckley: You do it mistakenly. They have no connection with us whatever. They don’t belong to the church. There are actually no Mormon fundamentalists. ….
Larry King:You condemn it. Gordon B. Hinckley:I condemn it, yes, as a practice, because I think it is not doctrinal. It is not legal. And this church takes the position that we will abide by the law. We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, magistrates in honoring, obeying and sustaining the law. I go with…I’m not sure it is doctrinal. Current prophets have more clarity for me in my day then past prophets, and what was said in the past.
On LDS.org, it is said:
Quote:Latter-day Saints do not understand all of God’s purposes in instituting, through His prophets, the practice of plural marriage. The Book of Mormon identifies one reason for God to command it: to increase the number of children born in the gospel covenant in order to “raise up seed unto [the Lord].”
I am not sure what to make of that in the next life. Will we be raising up seed in the eternities? Is that done the same way as on earth (through sex, fertilization, and birth)? Or is it possible the spirit children are created in other ways to a celestial couple, therefore, making the sex and the need for woman to have babies and the role of men and woman in the process something totally different…therefore making polygamy irrelevant just like living the law of the Word of Wisdom and Tithing, and priesthood to males only irrelevant in the next life??It is possible many many odd or uncomfortable things in this life that exist for various reasons just don’t apply in the next life. I think it is hard to take our current outlook on things, and project in the eternities it will be that way, or even project back and say it was always required to be this way. This life has needs to meet, and like Christ telling the Brother of Jared to figure it out and he’ll approve any number of ideas on how it can be done…I am open to lots of variation.
I tend to think polgyamy, tithing, and WOW are things done in this world from time to time … not doctrinal, and not eternal practices, and not something I must believe in.
I appreciate Holy Cow’s litany of pretty black and white statements about plural marriage from prophets. The one statement — about how the church doesn’t know why it happened is important to me. I also think it’s a convenient, oft-used strategy to admit you don’t know something when a likely answer is unpalatable. At times, it can be a very valid answer.
But I hear this “we don’t know” reason given a lot — particularly in relation to objectional doctrines or historical points. When used as a convenient way out, I don’t accept it. In fact, I often have trouble accepting the IDK strategy as an official response given its apparent misuse over the years.
Freud made a very interesting comment. He said that in therapy with his clients, he found the most important information he could often glean from the psychotherapy session would be the point at which his questioning and client’s free association came to a dead end. At the point they said “I don’t know”. To Freud, the information beyond this point represented repressed thoughts, and motives, which, when uncovered, would lead the client and the therapist to insight and truth about the client’s case. These IDK’s were unknown because during their waking state, they were too threatening to and anxiety-producing to the client to be stated opening. To Freud, reaching these IDK points was an important step toward helping the client get better.
I often wonder if there there some truth behind the IDK’s of Mormon religion, particularly those IDK’s associated with objectional historical or doctrinal matters that might help us understand truth better?
SilentDawning wrote:I appreciate Holy Cow’s litany of pretty black and white statements about plural marriage from prophets.
The one statement — about how the church doesn’t know why it happened is important to me. I also think it’s a convenient, oft-used strategy to admit you don’t know something when a likely answer is unpalatable. At times, it can be a very valid answer.
But I hear this “we don’t know” reason given a lot — particularly in relation to objectional doctrines or historical points. When used as a convenient way out, I don’t accept it. In fact, I often have trouble accepting the IDK strategy as an official response given its apparent misuse over the years.
Freud made a very interesting comment. He said that in therapy with his clients, he found the most important information he could often glean from the psychotherapy session would be the point at which his questioning and client’s free association came to a dead end. At the point they said “I don’t know”. To Freud, the information beyond this point represented repressed thoughts, and motives, which, when uncovered, would lead the client and the therapist to insight and truth about the client’s case. These IDK’s were unknown because during their waking state, they were too threatening to and anxiety-producing to the client to be stated opening. To Freud, reaching these IDK points was an important step toward helping the client get better.
I often wonder if there there some truth behind the IDK’s of Mormon religion, particularly those IDK’s associated with objectional historical or doctrinal matters that might help us understand truth better?
Good question. I don’t know.SilentDawning wrote:But I hear this “we don’t know” reason given a lot — particularly in relation to objectional doctrines or historical points.
I’ve come to embrace the IDK reason completely. It opens the doors for me to stayLDS, accepting others don’t know anymore than I do…and therefore, I can practice my religion in a way that makes most sense to me, and what leads to goodness in my life, realizing many things will never be known in this world, and therefore, I choose to believe what I feel my spirit believes AND most importantly, know that others have their opinions, but they don’t know either.Once I realized we preach that we don’t “know” some things…then it made it easier for me in my situation. But I do feel like I believe in many good things, even while I don’t know objectionable or hard things.
A lot of this comes from my personal situation. I am still sealed to my ex-wife. And it doesn’t bother me, because we don’t know much about the next life, so I don’t have to worry about it. (Just like I don’t worry about polygamy in the next life).
I look for what is good in this life…and I cling to that.
Heber13 wrote:Once I realized we preach that we don’t “know” some things…then it made it easier for me in my situation. But I do feel like I believe in many good things, even while I don’t know objectionable or hard things.
A lot of this comes from my personal situation. I am still sealed to my ex-wife. And it doesn’t bother me, because we don’t know much about the next life, so I don’t have to worry about it. (Just like I don’t worry about polygamy in the next life).
I can see how the easiest approach to polygamy in the celestial kingdom might be to say that we just don’t know, so there’s no point in worrying about it in this life. I really can see that point, but in my mind there’s more to it than that. Our leaders today say that we don’t know. But, the leaders who founded the church sure weren’t saying that they didn’t know. They spoke in absolute terms, saying that any man who refused to accept the doctrine of plural marriage would be damned. Personally, if I get to the afterlife and Brigham’s up there handing out wives at the front gate of the celestial kingdom, I think I’ll be walking down the road and standing in the terrestrial line.
But, seriously, I get tired of having to come up with excuses for Joseph’s ‘revelations’ to make the church make sense. It’s easier for me to take each doctrine individually and take it or leave it. And, as time goes on, I’ve found that I’ve had to drop most of Joseph’s doctrines, because I just can’t see why God would have him restore Old Testament doctrines after Christ had come to the Earth with a new law. Old Testament doctrines were left in the past for a reason. I wish Joseph would have left them in the past and stuck with the New Testament.
If he had’ve just stuck with the key points of the Plan of Salvation, eternal, monogomous family, and if BY hadn’t gone racist, I think we’d all be a lot happier. So much was unique about our church — the temples, the structure that mirrored the primitive church, the ideas of lineage linked to the house of Israel, etcetera. Quote:It’s easier for me to take each doctrine individually and take it or leave it.
I think most people here do that or are their way to doing that. We don’t agree on each and every teaching, but we generally have taken or are learning to take responsibility for what we believe personally and what we don’t. Ironically, that is baseline Mormon doctrine – something about worshiping according to the dictates of our own consciences.
Holy Cow wrote:Old Testament doctrines were left in the past for a reason. I wish Joseph would have left them in the past and stuck with the New Testament.
I agree with your feelings Holy Cow. Actually…I think some of the things Joseph did and said should be left in the past, just like parts of the OT that no longer apply to us in our day.But our church has a hard time because we cling to Joseph as our prophet. It is hard to think stuff he said no longer applies. But in my mind, it just doesn’t. So I have to start getting comfortable building my testimony on what I believe through my spirit, even if others tell me that Joseph taught otherwise. I don’t think people at church realize that our correlated teaching manuals were correlated with the cafeteria approach…they picked and chose what things they thought would be uplifting to the body of the church…and left out many things that were puzzling or repellent doctrines.
I don’t explain polygamy in the CK away as no big deal. It’s a HUGE deal to me. And it has shaped how I view teachings in the church.
That is an interesting counterpoint to some that push, “you shouldn’t be a cafeteria Mormon!” I think I heard that the initial correlation decided upon 70-something concepts to move forward with and left the others to the, “not taught at church” pile. That’s right, LH. We all do the cafeteria approach…we have to with our limited capacities. Some just feel the menu the authorized leaders have approved is the true way to be a cafeteria mormon. That’s OK if that tastes good to them. It just supports my idea that everyone does it. So…on to my buffet selection. I want what is nourishing to me, I’m a big boy and can figure out what is not so good. And if not…I’ll learn through experience. 90% of what is on the “approved” buffet menu is stuff I like anyway. (polygamy in the CK is NOT one of them)
Quote:90% of what is on the “approved” buffet menu is stuff I like anyway.
That is important to recognize.
Heber13 wrote:90% of what is on the “approved” buffet menu is stuff I like anyway.
That’s awesome! I’m probably closer to 10%, and I find myself feeling jealous of those who are closer to 90%. I think I spent most of my life around the 90% range, but I just grew too tired of trying to prop it up with things that I couldn’t explain. So, I basically dropped everything and went from 90% to 0% in a matter of months. Now, I’ve built it back up to 10% and I’ve been hanging around there for quite a while. Like DarkJedi says to everybody, “Take it slow.” I’ve have to take things very slow to maintain the 10% I have, instead of dropping it all again. I know we’re talking about intangible percentages, which can’t really be measured, so don’t caught up in the numbers, but my point is that my faith is pretty low as far as Joseph and all of the doctrines that came directly from him. It’s one step at a time. It’s awesome to see the huge range of people on this site, and I think that’s where the real value comes from. 10% is okay, 90% is okay. Sitting in Sunday School, I’ve always felt like anything less than 100% is not okay.
So, it seems like the real answer to whether or not there is polygamy in the celestial kingdom is: It depends on who you ask. Joseph, Brigham, Heber C Kimball, John Taylor, Orson Hyde would have given one answer. Monson, Hinckley, Uchtdorf, Eyering might give a very different answer. And that’s okay! (can’t help picturing Stuart Smalley when I write that!)
Fwiw, HC, my 90% is taken from what I see as the messages and teachings that are in the correlated materials and manuals. The 10% I dislike stands out simply because, as psychology says clearly, one negative experience often outweighs 6-7 positive experiences in our memories. It makes sense: We can have 6-7 positive experiences, but there usually isn’t any intensity to those experiences – especially if we have them quite regularly. We start to take them for granted and, often, stop recognizing them as being the positives they really are. They become our “normal”. When we have a negative experience, it stands out – often because it hurts in some real way. Since the positives have morphed into normality, all we recognize is the negative. We lose sight of the positives and begin to feel like it’s nothing but negatives.
Learning to recognize and admit that our normal consists of many positives is the first step.
Holy Cow wrote:I’m probably closer to 10%
Really??? I’m not saying I don’t believe you…just…surprised. Really??? You only like 10% of all things mormonism? Or am I misunderstanding?
But the buffet is so HUGE. Are you sure you’re not just 10% of that one section of the buffet you’re looking at?
:think: Hmmm…I wonder if I’m 90% good with just that one section of the buffet I’m looking at…maybe my perspective is limited. I guess that’s why I keep searching…I want to see the whole picture to try to know accurately what I really don’t believe in or really don’t like, while still holding on to what I like about it.But I find only small amounts that I don’t like compared to all the things that are pretty good, and many things that are just “meh”, and then the few things that are pukey. I actually don’t even deal with polygamy in my mormonism unless I go looking for it (which is appropriate at times). Then I HATE it…which makes me just realize I can stay at the buffet and hate it AND at the same time love other things. Polygamy doesn’t ruin loving service that I see on a weekly basis, or lessons on sacrifice, or talks on bible stories (that I sometimes disagree with which benefits me by thinking about why I disagree), or callings, or social gatherings, or youth activities, or moving members of the ward…or the other things that really are happening on a weekly basis.
So are you saying when you go to church, 9 out of 10 things that are happening around you are things you don’t like? You don’t have to answer, I’m not saying that is wrong or bad…not trying to pass judgment. Just wondering.
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